


January 2019, California

by germanjj



Series: Buried Under Clear Glass (Finished Series) [9]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF, Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Boys In Love, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Slow Build, Slow Burn, a Tyler cameo we all want and deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:26:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24025801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/germanjj/pseuds/germanjj
Summary: Sometimes love is so clear to see, visible for everyone around you, and yet you're not able to reach out and touch it, grab it, pull it towards you. It's like it's buried under clear glass.And sometimes, this very love is what hurts you the most.
Relationships: Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer
Series: Buried Under Clear Glass (Finished Series) [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657570
Comments: 21
Kudos: 73





	January 2019, California

He arrives late at the party, which is nothing new for him, but I keep checking my phone with a dreadful feeling in my stomach. As if him being late now does have a different tint to it than all the other times. Like he was on his way and then changed his mind, arriving at the conclusion that it was better to avoid me. 

He hasn't brought it up and neither have I. But our conversations have an undertone now and rather than a wall dividing us, we're two people trapped in a box, neither of us knowing the way out, but neither willing to be the first to stand up and try. 

When he does arrive, with an apology and a smile as big as always, and when he hugs me tight and without hesitating and throws me that small, private smile that he only wears for me - that's the moment I lose the ground under my feet. 

I'm aware of the cruelty of the joke the universe is playing on me. That it wasn't the moment we kissed in the car, or when I wouldn't think about anything else but his naked body when we were on the phone together, and not even when he was sleeping in my arms. It's this very moment I hold him in my arms, however briefly, that my world tilts. 

He reaches up to me, one hand rubbing over my newly shaved head, and then he laughs, making a joke about my new haircut, his eyes dancing, and I can barely breathe. 

Minutes later, I'm able to excuse myself from the group to hide in the kitchen, where there's food to put into bowls or arrange on plates. My hands are shaking, holding the pre-sliced plate of veggies and cheese I take out of the fridge. 

I can see him through the glass door, standing in a group of friends, and my chest tightens just like it always does. I had always dismissed the romantic expression of 'taking your breath away' but have long learned that the words, just like most expressions, are true sometimes. 

In my daydreams, I find myself not lingering so much on our kiss, but keep coming back to that day years ago when after a stage talk I had held him in my arms and he had kissed my chest, just above my heart, like he was trying to kiss my heart through the skin and the bones protecting it. And I think about how he had succeeded reaching through all the barriers and seared his mark on it, and I hadn't been able to get rid of it ever since. 

He looks up through the window and finds me looking at him. A smile flashes over his face before he looks away. 

There's a moment of sheer terror pulsing through me when I look at the glasses on the shelf next to the sink and the painting my daughter had done pinned to the fridge and realize that I will lose all of this. 

That even though I had spent the last years fighting, I am now at the end of that battle and have lost the war. I can no longer pretend, not without hurting not just me, but the people I love, by playing a role that I no longer fit into. 

There's a surge of anger directed at Timmy, hate even, just briefly, for doing this to me, for waking me up, and now it was on me to find out what to do with it, with or without him. It ebbs away quickly and leaves fear and excitement in its wake.

"Armie, are you alright?" Timmy stops by the glass door, a frown on his face, and he's holding onto the doorframe as if he's stopping himself from coming inside or waiting for permission to enter. To be alone with me. 

I don't answer at first. Instead, I look at Timmy and let him wash over me, the sight of him, the sound of his voice in the air. In a twisted way, the panic halts. I haven't lost anything yet. For now, everything and everyone I love is right here. 

"I- yeah, of course. Can you please grab the soda?"

He points to the fridge and raises his eyebrows, and I nod, slipping from his gaze while I busy myself with reaching for the plates in front of me. 

He walks over and pulls 4 bottles from the fridge, placing them in front of me. He hesitates. "I wanted to talk to you," he says, in a tone that sends a renewed shiver of fear down my spine. 

"Okay." I set the plates down and place my hands on the island, bracing myself. I'm aware of my wife just on the other side of the window, of my friends and family close enough they could walk in any second, but if Timmy wants to talk about what we should have talked about two years ago, then I will let him speak and listen. And if he is here to tell me that he's found someone else, then I will be happy for him, I tell myself. I will smile and I will hug him and will be satisfied. 

"I signed one of those contracts."

He looks up briefly and then down, waiting for my mind to catch up with what he just told me. 

My stomach drops when it does. Timmy doesn't need to explain more and it seems like he knew that I would understand, just by the tone of his confession. I wonder if he contemplated telling me over the phone, or via text, and then ultimately landed on telling me face to face as if he needed to, as if I deserved that. I don't know if I do. 

"No," I say in the way of 'please be joking' even though I know he isn't. 

"I knew you'd be mad." He laughs painfully as if the words are hurting him or me, and he knew they would be.

"Why?" A thousand other thoughts are running through my head, selfish ones, ones that I would never speak out loud, but the word is the only one that breaks through.

Timmy scratches the back of his neck, his voice low. "You know why."

And I do. It's what's twisting my stomach even more, knowing that I understand his reasoning. That I had seen this coming in a way, was dreading it, as if Timmy giving in to the games of Hollywood would mean that I have failed him, that they got to him now, and his innocence and purity that I had wished to preserve just a little bit longer, is finally gone. 

"With whom?" I ask, my voice thick with restraint. 

His eyes meet mine, hesitating as if he knows he's going to hurt the two of us even further with his next word. "Lily."

I nod, trying to show him that he wouldn't get the anger from me he was expecting, but already failing. 

"Look, it's just a year and we don't have to do much, just enough so that the press picks up on it and gets off my back." His eyes tell me he's at least aware that he's justifying it to himself more so than to me. 

I want to tell him that I'd thought he could have escaped this, that, if anyone was able to break through this charade, it would have been him. But it's a cruel thought, putting the weight of his own generation and the ones after him on his shoulders and I can't bear the thought of hurting him even more than I already did and than he had done to himself by signing off on this. 

My heart breaks for him in silence.

"You're not saying anything is actually worse." That painful laugh again, nervousness crossing his features. 

"What do you want me to say?" The words come out sharper than I want them to but I can't help it. 

He turns away from me and brings distance between us. "You're making this way bigger than it is."

"Because I'm fucking angry, okay?" My shouting startles us both. 

"Fuck. Sorry." I press away from the kitchen island and lean against the cabinet behind me, bringing more distance between us, and I feel every inch of it, cold and frighteningly lonely. 

I wonder what people would see if they entered the kitchen and watched us on opposite ends of it, glaring at each other. Would they just see the anger on the surface, or would they be able to pick up on the undercurrent, a history of so much we don't speak about?

His lips are pressed together, nose flaring, and I know exactly that there's nothing I can tell him he hasn't said to himself. It's that moment that I realize he's regretting it already, is probably more angry at himself than I could ever be at him. 

I deflate. My anger shifts towards whoever made Timmy believe that he could only be the actor he wanted to be and get the roles he wanted to get if people thought him to be regularly involved with the newest up-and-coming pretty girl. 

He rolls his eyes when he sees my face as if he sees the shift in my anger, and instead of being relieved, it gives fire to his own. "Don't pity me."

"So you have to what- be seen holding hands with her in public? Kiss her so the paparazzi can get a nice shot in?" My tone is vile and I know it.

He looks up as if I've slapped him in the face and I immediately regret it. 

He stays silent. Doesn't shoot back, doesn't throw 'It's not like I could kiss you in public' in my face even though I hear it being thrown at me by my own mind. 

I take a deep breath. "She doesn't fucking deserve this. And you don't either. You know what I think of these fake relationship deals, so what did you expect?"

"I don't know." He repeats, quieter. "I don't know. I just- wanted you to know."

There's another thought that crawls up my neck, hot and painful, more than a thought even, a certainty, a cruel truth that had been sitting with us in the car that day and that hadn't left us ever since. Because with the possibility of acknowledging what it is between us, comes the impossibility of it. If he is willing to go this far for his career, there is no place for me by his side. I would ruin him. His dreams, all that he is sacrificing so much of himself for. It wouldn't be worth the fleeting moments of happiness. Worse even, I would risk losing him entirely. 

I shiver even though the room is warm, and I tighten my arms around myself, like a hug I can no longer ask for. 

He looks as miserable as I feel, and I want to ask him how we are supposed to go on now. But again, I don't have the energy or willingness to wound either of us even more than we already are wounded, and I don't know what to say to make it better. 

"Okay, I- Should I take the sodas outside?" He clears his throat, avoiding my eyes.

I nod and watch him take the bottles off the counter, and without a second glance, he leaves the room.

Once again, the universe laughs at the cruel joke of letting me come to terms with my love for him just in time to show me that there is nowhere to place it. 

"Holy shit," I hear a voice say, not from the door Timmy had left through, but from the hallway to my right. 

I startle as I see Tyler entering the kitchen, and his face tells me that he had witnessed all of it. 

"Fuck!" I bury my head in my hands, rubbing them over my head in a fruitless attempt of waking myself up from this nightmare. "What the fuck, man? Were you eavesdropping?"

He doesn't rise to my anger. Instead, he walks closer to me and studies my face as if he sees me the first time in his life. It's a kind look. One that tells you that the person giving you that look cares deeply for you and worries about you. 

"Fuck," I repeat, this time much quieter.

He waits patiently until I look up at him. "If only half of what I think is going on between the two of you is true, you can't keep that shit bottled up, man."

He reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. 

"I'm in love with him," break the words out of me, in a whisper, but echoing inside the room as if I had shouted them. His hand on my shoulder holds on tighter as I fold in on myself, my head falling forward, bracing myself barely with my hands on my knees. 

Now, with the words spoken aloud, they leave emptiness behind that lets me gasp for air as if speaking the words equals giving them away, cutting out the part of me that is part of him, not knowing if it would ever grow back. 

"Fuck," Tyler says, pulling me not only up but also into the hallway, away from straying eyes from the outside that could witness my breakdown through the windows, and then he pulls me into the tight hug, I had been longing for just minutes before.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this took so long and thank you all sooo much for all your suggestions! I think I have figured out the last parts now ;)


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